The Last Circus

Crazy and wild Spanish love triangle mess.

A clown during the Spanish civil war of the 30’s is called for arms by one side where he kills away with a machete he was given. During these circumstances, his son gets separated from him and learns that his father has to go to jail.

After asking his son what he wants to become despite having had much less love from regular parents, he says that he wants to follow tradition by becoming a clown as well. His father however concludes in a twisted way that he should become a sad clown instead of a happy clown, because he has never be a regular kid and feels that revenge is the only way to feel alive.

Yeah, twisted shit man. Many decades later during the 70’s, the son is now a clown as well, a sad one as his dad wanted him to be. It’s his first day at a circus and he meets his nemesis, a happy clown but violent alcoholic, Sergio, and his girlfriend Natalie.

At first, nothing seems out of the ordinary. However once the son, who is called Javier by the way, does not laugh at Sergio’s joke after a circus session where everyone is gathered, conflicts are born and Javier witnesses Sergio hitting on his girl for the first time.

That’s when the madness truly starts, and the movie does not stop getting madder until the credits roll and the sad ending is done. The Last Circus was a surprise Spanish comedic drama horror for me, and it was my favorite clown based movie for a long time...until recently.

Rating: 7.5

Apostle

A brother goes undercover towards an island where her sister is being kept for ransom, while a religious cult is practicing insidious activity within the community, in 1905.

Thomas, played by Dan Stevens, discovers that the leaders including Malcolm and Quinn offer blood sacrifices towards their unholy goddess, who is able to provide sustainability for the island.

Directed by Gareth Evans who also did the excellent The Raid movies and the sick Safe Haven segment during V/H/S/ 2, Apostle reminded me of a little flawed game called Sanatorium from 1998, and The Wicker Man(1973) was also drifting by.

The screenplay is effective, and the horror includes torture, self mutilation, an insane cult wacko and various killings. Apostle is in overall a well balanced mystery horror, but the running time could perhaps have been cut a bit.

Rating: 7.0

Alien

 

Released in 1979, Alien is an iconic sci-fi horror movie that is sometimes named as a slasher movie using a space setting.

When the Nostromo crew encounters strange cocoon eggs on an unknown planet, Kane gets infected by an alien being, and eventually during dinner time, dies as a result of a crawling alien bursting out of his chest.

Directed by Ridley Scott, the cinematography and production values are amazing and some of the richest of this decade if you ask me. The tension, jump scares and thrills are also very effective, and the drama surrounding the crew dying off and Ripley becoming the final girl is also directed nicely.

Alien is a classic horror that introduced the audience towards the facehugger and the xenomorph, whom would become the antagonistic aliens in the overall franchise, as sequels, prequels and spin-offs have been made out of this.

Rating: 8.0

Ripley awakens in the future, having survived the encounter with the xenomorph. This time however, mankind sends in a military squad with state of the art firepower and supporting technology towards the former spot where colonists now dwell and live(d), and they need her as an advisor to consult about aliens who just want to impregnate.

Aliens is definitely more action-filled than the first one, although survival horror is still present. The new crew formed by Weyland Company encounters at first a surviving little girl, but after the initial sweeps and scans, the conflict ensues.

Apart from James Cameron taking over the director seat with impressions, the highlight of seeing are the production values, in particular the special alien effects. Seeing Ripley turn out to be a full one bad ass girl with a second chance of acting as a mother is the other highlight.

Aliens is beloved by many, but I prefer Ridley Scott's original space slasher in the end. It's game over, man, just game over!


Rating: 7.5

After her last encounter, Ellen Ripley crash-lands on Fiorina 161, a maximum security prison. When a series of strange and deadly events occur shortly after her arrival, Ripley realizes that she has brought along an unwelcome visitor.

Alien 3 is where the quality is starting to fall down considerably. It starts with the weird name and poster for this title, and essentially, the movie has strange camera shots, is a entire feature of a cat and a mouse moving around, and I did not remember much from it.

Rating: 6.0

200 years after her death, Ellen Ripley is revived as a powerful human/alien hybrid clone. Along with a crew of space pirates, she must again battle the deadly aliens and stop them from reaching Earth.

Alien: Resurrection is another excuse to bring Ripley back, and this is the entry which truly started showing comedic values next towards attempting to keep the horror intact. Also starring Winona Ryder, I cannot really recommend this.

Rating: 5.0

Visually stands out gorgeously as a science fiction setting. Somewhat of a prequel towards the Alien franchise started by Ridley Scott, Prometheus is about a scientific exploration team preparing to meet their supposed makers according to ancient signs found in ancient leftovers of ancient civilizations.

Far away from the solar system and Earth, they land upon a mysterious planet, and together with an intelligent android, discover their ancestors according to a DNA match. After the 60th minute, the first deaths happen quite interestingly, and before that there were some additional scenes involving love, religion and more scientific ones.

Continuing on from that, the alien creature travels from body to body until a female character is forced to see her boyfriend die and later on perform a dangerous surgery upon herself. That boyfriend then returns from the dead, and it is quite clear by now that this entry can also be classified as a solid horror, very similar to Alien(1979).

Next to the enjoyable storyline, it features patriotic like music, good acting, impressive special effects and believable CGI at times. As for which movie being better in the end…I think that they are quite similar in the overall general sense, but there is enough differences to keep them unique from each other despite being familiar.

Prometheus is Ridley Scott’s modern take on a mysterious science fiction horror film, and I was pretty content with it. The very ending was a nice touch, combining an Engineer with another alien creature to create the one we have known to associate with the Alien films.

Rating: 7.5

The crew of a colony ship, bound for a remote planet, discover an uncharted paradise with a threat beyond their imagination, and must attempt a harrowing escape. In this prequel sequel to Prometheus(2012), Ridley Scott is back taking over the director chair, but the outcome is unfortunately more of the same.

Yet, if you have been an avid Alien fan over the decades, then I’m sure you will find entertainment and thrills here too. Starring Michael Fassbender, Alien: Covenant is a good continuation, bringing the circle of creation and evolution closer to the saga, but the CGI aliens can be annoying at times.

Rating: 7.0